I have a very special review of Slugdge – The Cosmic Cornucopia.

Slugdge is a fantastic 2 man studio Death Metal project from Lancashire, UK. The band consists of Kev Pearson on instrumentation, guitar & bass performance, main composition and Matt Moss on vocals, lyrics and composition. I have been following Slugdge for a few years now, and it makes me so happy to see them finally able to physically release their material. They play an absolutely enthralling take on Blackened Death Metal with prominent elements of OSDM, Sludge, Prog-Death & Doom Metal. They mix these genres so well and fluently, it really makes for an amazing musical journey. When I first heard them it was about a week after they dropped Gastronomicon. My friend showed me them on bandcamp and we each bought both of their first albums for $20 each. (They are on bandcamp for NYP download).

This album is the Bible of The Greatfather Mollusca, harvester of the universe. An epic, 24 track, reverse chronological order compilation of Slugdge’s 3 full length albums, Dim and Slimeridden Kingdoms, Gastronomicon & Born Of Slime. Each album contains 8 dark and progressive Death Metal tracks.

First you have their newest album Dim and Slimeridden Kingdoms. The songs are pretty long, with only 1 song clocking in just under 5 minutes and most of them being between 6 and 8 minutes. They do not drag on though. They progress wonderfully with great songwriting that allows the riffs to flow to one another perfectly. This album is definitely the most diverse Slugdge album. It has the most technical riffs out of any of their other albums, and some of the blackened parts, always present in Slugdge, are more Technical and Progressive in this album. One thing that may come as a downfall to some, is that this album seems to have more clean vocal range and cleaner clean vocals & ‘Priest Chants’ as I like to call them. The gents have clearly progressed at their respective instruments. Definitely noticeable in the advancement of the clean vocals and the grim highs as well as the technicality of the riffing. That’s not to take anything away from their previous works.

The middle of the album consists of most of my favourite Slugdge songs, in Gastronomicon. It has a really great instrumental intro whoch flows directly into the title track, which is almost 8 minustes long as it is. I like to think of the intro, Dark Side Of The Shroom (LOL) as part of the song Gastronomicon. This song also contains the lyrics which they will choose for their compilation title. This album has a very bleak, but yet spectral feel to it. It is dark, epic, and fantastical, all at the same time.

The last third, Born Of Slime, this is Slugdge’s first full length album, and it’s pretty much just as great as the other 2. It’s place on this compilation is well deserved even though it does sound more primitive and raw than the other 2. Slugdge, to this day has a very dark vibe to their songs, but this album is especially grim and bleak. One interesting piece of trivia is that this album’s cover art was very obviously inspired by The Destruction of Soddom and Gomorrah, painted by John Martin in 1852.

Sometimes people tend not to like compilations, and for me, it depends on the case but I generally don’t care. This one is great because it makes all 3 of Slugdge’s fantastic releases, available physically to the fans. The first 2, physically for the first time. Plus, the albums do flow really well. Though I do kind of feel that it should have gone oldest release to newest release, they obviously chose this order for a reason. One thing that I like about Slugdge that is not musical is that their titles are parodies of classic Metal titles that most fans of Slugdge have probably heard before. It is a fun Easter egg and reminds me of Cannabis Corpse and Dethklok.

For fans of Behemoth, Bal-Sagoth, The Chasm, Apocrophex, Emperor, Nile